I Know It (A Homeschool Crew Review)

For the last few weeks, the kids have been using I Know It, a completely interactive browser based math practice program that combines fun animations and attention catching audio to encourage students to practice their math skills.  We were given a one year subscription for both Garrett and Ashleigh.

Designed for elementary aged students, I Know It offers a wide variety of activities to practice math skills for grades Kindergarten through Fifth Grade.  Math skills are sorted by grade level, starting with counting by 2s and single digit addition in Kindergarten all the way through operations with fractions in 5th Grade.

I Know It is very simple to use. The parent is given a list of various math skills, listed by grade, which they can assign to their students.  Each activity also includes a Common Core link that shows which common core standard the activity meets.  The student is then able to log in and are presented with those activities assigned to them.  Parents are emailed weekly progress reports that show what assignments the child has worked on, how the scored on those assignments and how much time they have spent working with I Know It.

I would not recommend this program as a stand along math curriculum and it is not intended to be used as such.  When a student gets a problem wrong, they are given the correct answer and a very brief visual on how to arrive to the answer but there is no actual math instruction given.  This program is strictly practicing the skills that students have learned elsewhere in order to achieve mastery of the skill.

I Know It has been a wonderful addition to our school day.  We've used it as a supplement to our current math curriculum.  After teaching a lesson, I simply go into the I Know It contents, find a practice activity that complimented the material they had learned and assigned it to them to practice.  With the various math skills broken down by grade level skills as well as the type of skill it practices ( Fractions, multiplication, measurements, money, ect), I can just quickly scan the list of skills, add the practice I want to add to the kids to-do list and it's waiting for them when they log in.

When they log in, they simply find their name and icon and it brings them to their home screen with a list of all the assigned activities for them.  As you can see below, we are currently working through fractions, so Ashleigh's assignment list has a large majority of fractional activities on her list for her to work through.  She also needs extra practice with her larger digit addition and subtraction, so I try to keep some activities on the list for her to work on just to help build those skills better.

The kids simply pick out one or two activities  from their list to work on.   For each activity, they are given 15 problems over the skill selected for them complete.  A graphic on the side shows the students how many questions they have completed.  As they answer the questions, a cute animation graphic (for us it was usually a robot but on a few activities it has been a cute little astronaut) reacts to their answers.

They are actually able to use this program pretty independently, giving me the opportunity to fix their lunch while they work.  This makes it easy for me, because I don't have to be over their shoulder all the time, Some activities, like the larger addition and subtraction problems, the kids have to pull out their paper and pencil and work them out the old fashioned way to come up with the answer, as there's not a way to work the problems out on the program.  I actually prefer this myself to having them work it out with a calculator or on the computer so they get the practice of actually working the problem out.

I also like that if the kids turn off the computer or close the browser window, the activity keeps track of their progress, starting where they left off.  If they forgot to answer question 15 for example, the activity stays on their dashboard until they go back and complete the activity and answer the final question.   One they complete the activity, it is removed from their dashboard and they can either move on to another activity or I can reassign it if I believe they need more practice.

Overall, this program has worked really well for us, most especially with Garrett. The cute animations and sound effects, along with the randomness of those animations, really catches his attention and keeps him engaged.  Finding computer based programs that work with Garrett is always a hit and miss, but this one has definitely been a hit for him.  Garrett enjoys math to begin with, because of the finality of it. Add a cute robot that does crazy things like blasting off to the moon or blowing bubble and he's more than happy to work on his math assignment.

One particular animation has a dog parking, which is always a hit when it happens because our dog will begin barking in response and starts looking for the dog.  Both Ashleigh and Garrett do their work in the hopes that that particular animal occurs because they think it's funny.

For more information regarding I Know It, be sure to visit their website.  Interested homeschooling parents as well as teachers can sign up for a free 60 day trial (no credit card needed) by clicking here https://www.iknowit.com/sign-up.html.

You can also find more information on the following social media platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iknowitcom/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/iknowit_com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iknowit_com/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/iknowitcom/pins/

Sunya (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

Math is a subject we have struggled with, so when given the opportunity to reinforce or help strengthen mathematics skills through fun activities, I'm all for it.  We have a few different games to help the kids work on their addition and subtraction skills that the kids have had fun playing on various opportunities.  When we were given the opportunity to review Sunya - The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtraction (which I will just call Sunya for the rest of the review) from Sunya Publishing before it's released to the public, we were pretty excited.  

A new company in it's infant stages, Sunya Publishing offers two variations of their Sunya card game - the Addition and Subtraction that we were given as well as a Multiplication and Division version for older students.  The Addition & Subtraction version is for ages 7 through adult and can be played solo or with up to five players at one time.  The set includes a 26 page School and Homeschool Teacher/Parent guidebook that includes instructions for game play for three different versions of the basic game as well as suggested math activities that can use the game cards, as well as math and science facts and riddles.  The game itself consists of 60 Playing Cards as well as 30 Riddle cards.  Also included is a useful cardstock numberline that ranges from -3 to 21.   Playing cards are comprised of numbers 0-9 (multiples of each number) as well as an Addition sign card, Subtraction sign card and an Equals sign card (1 of each).  One thing I do like is that each number card not only has the number but also shows a dot representation of that number which really helps with identifying numbers like 9 and 6 that can be flipped.

The purpose of the game is pretty simple. Basically, players are dealt a hand of cards and are asked to use their cards to alter a given number sentence in order to make a new and correct number sentence.  Players do this by placing a card in their current hand over cards in the existing number sentence on the playing field.  The game is complete when one player has placed all their cards down and their hand is empty. This player than announces they are"Sunya" which is a Sanskrit word that means empty and the player is basically saying "I am out of cards".   The winner then gets to draw a card from the Riddle Card Deck and read the riddle aloud.  While many of the facts on these cards were interesting (What is a googolplex) and some were funny (Why did the boy eat his homework? His teacher said it was a piece of cake.), I honestly didn't see how they tied into the game and their addition just seemed disjointed from the game's purpose. 

Ash and Garrett tried to play the game but right now they are so competitive that Garrett got upset when Ashleigh would change his word sentences..  They are both very competitive at this point and neither like to lose.

Yeah - He's a Sore Loser 

Now, while I said the game is pretty simple, you would not know this from reading the instructions.  It should not take an 8 page notebook to explain how to play the basic game.  The instructions are very complicated and are unclear at times.  As complicated of a game that Monopoly is, for example, it doesn't even have this much instructions for gameplay and this game is much much simpler. Unfortunately, I feel that this would be a huge deal breaker for the success of this game as many parents would be completely turned away by the instructions alone.  This could easily be fixed before the actual release of the game by having someone who understands game play to sit down and simplify the instructions for better understanding.

Overall, I think the game itself is nice and I can already see various ways we can use both the game as well as the number cards into various activities with our schooling.  The inclusion of the Riddle Cards seem to be the only tie to any Science in calling this game "The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science" and there's very little Science even with the cards.  My suggestion would be to lose the riddle cards, drop the Science tie to this game and instead rework the instructions for clarification for the actual Math game.  It's a good game and Sunya really should concentrate more on that portion of the product - if they did so, it would be a winner.